Sociomantic Labshttps://www.sociomantic.com
Programmatic Display for eCommerceFri, 26 Oct 2018 12:02:31 +0000en-UShourly12018 Holiday Insights Reporthttps://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/10/2018-holiday-insights-report/
Tue, 16 Oct 2018 16:30:01 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18704DMEXCO2018: dunnhumby media is a GO!https://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/09/dmexco2018-dunnhumby-media-is-a-go/
Tue, 18 Sep 2018 23:55:23 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18680Continue reading →]]>What an exciting dmexco this one was! Why? Because a) For the first time, both dunnhumby and Sociomantic were there together; b) dunnhumby announced the release of dunnhumby media, its takeover of the media business; and c) our booth was always full!

DMEXCO is the meeting place for key players shaping today’s digital business, marketing, and innovation. It’s a community of industry leaders, tech pioneers, and marketing and media professionals setting the digital agenda. This year the event was also a stage for the release of dunnhumby media. After more than 25 years managing media campaigns by dunnhumby, a dedicated solution was inevitable – and, with Sociomantic’s proprietary tech (which was acquired by dunnhumby in 2014), the timing for dunnhumby media was ideal. With nearly 30 years’ experience in retail — one of the world’s most competitive markets, with a deluge of multi-dimensional data — we’ve worked for decades on enabling businesses all over the world, across industries, to be Customer First. And now, with dunnhumby media, we’ll be focusing on a new mission: to help retailers and advertisers connect with customers at the right place and time, with the right message, it was exciting to see so many people coming to our booth wanting to know more.

With a video station revealing the potential of our Sofa to Store Journeys Designed by Science and three demo stations explaining the true potential of personalised communications at home, one the move and in store, our booth managed to attract quite a crowd. Our tables and chairs were always busy with people having meetings, and our booth was constantly full (with, of course, a peak of visitors on our happy hour during the first day!). Thirty-four people from all across the dunnhumby family (including Sociomantic) came together in Cologne to make sure the launch happened the best way it could have, and we can say mission was accomplished.

It’s an exciting new step, and the reception at dmexco made us all feel it was the right one. And now that we’ve taken that step, it’s time to start sprinting! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to stay updated, and have a look at our photo album and video recap.

]]>Back to School, Back to Revenuehttps://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/08/back-to-school-back-to-revenue/
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 12:36:03 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18633Continue reading →]]>It might sound surprising, but it’s true: back to school (BTS) is the second biggest shopping season of the year, coming right after the holiday season. Parents everywhere are ready to make sure their kids have all they need, and in total BTS spend this year is expected to reach a staggering $27.5B. According to a Deloitte study, 49% of it will happen in August, with the majority coming early in the month, and 53% of BTS shoppers start shopping for school items three weeks to a month before the school year starts. All of this means retailers have an opportunity to cash-in in one of the busiest, most rentable times of the year. But how do consumers actually buy during this time?

In-store vs Online

In general, shoppers are expected to spend more than double in-store compared to online (57% vs 23%). In-store, the average spent is expected to be around $292, while the online one should reach around $115. For online retailers, this is still one third of the cake – aka, a really big slice. Online is still, of course, extremely important.

For one, online continues to be an important channel in the customer journey: 56% of customers research online before purchasing products in the physical store (Deloitte).

Secondly, the Deloitte survey found that 20% of BTS households were undecided about how they will be shopping, which represents a $5.5B opportunity that online retailers can capitalize on it if they play their cards right.

When it comes to online shopping, more BTS shoppers (53%) plan to use their mobile device than their desktop for things like accessing websites, looking at prices, and collecting coupons and discounts. However, BTS shoppers are more likely to make online purchases on desktop (53%) than on mobile (46%). This online presence gives online retailers a huge opportunity for business and to reach potential new customers.

A Need for Alignment

What does all of this mean? It means that retailers need to have a holistic advertising plan as customers expect the online and in-store shopping experience to be aligned and seamless. Only through this can one fully explore the potential of the season – or any season, really.

Programmatic video ad spend has increased dramatically over the years; in Europe, it now accounts for more than 45% of total online video ad spend, according to IAB. And today, more people watch video on mobile than on desktop.

If the terms companion banner and quartiles cause question marks in your head, now is the time to take a deep dive into programmatic video. We’ve created a resource that deciphers the most important terms.

Download this tool to brush up on your industry knowledge and learn new programmatic video terms such as:

Did we miss a term? We’re constantly updating this guide, so email us with additional terms that you would like to have defined.

]]>Sociomantic Women in Tech: Real Talk From Our Software Developerhttps://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/05/sociomantic-women-in-tech-real-talk-from-our-software-developer/
Wed, 30 May 2018 10:09:29 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18360Continue reading →]]>In this series,we hear from women in different departments at Sociomantic about their roles, their unique experiences and their recommendations for those interested in joining the industry. After interviewing technical account managers and UX designers, we now speak with Liza Churkyn, a software developer that works at the heart of our business. She gives us some insights into why software development is for everyone.

What are your responsibilities at Sociomantic and what is it that you enjoy most about your current job?

I’m a backend server developer with the reporting team. I am responsible for storing large amounts of data every day, which gets read by our bidding and campaign control applications.

There are a lot of things I love about being a developer. When dealing with computers, things make sense for me: problems are solvable and solutions range from ingenious to elegant to dirty. Another thing I find satisfying is that no matter what I’m working on, it will start bearing fruits quickly, and I’ll see results within hours, days or weeks. I also love the peace and quiet as I can work completely independently; there’s something liberating about not being dependent on anyone. And at Sociomantic, there’s no dress code (not even an unspoken one) — what matters is the work you do.

What are the challenges that come up in Software Development, and which kind of skills do you need to overcome them?

My team works with real-time, server-side applications that have to accurately process a large amount of incoming traffic. We need to make sure that our applications are resilient to network problems, hardware issues and any fraud attempts by malicious users. Our entire business relies on our data being up to date and correct, which makes our applications a critical part of the system. We need to know what we’re doing and not to panic when for example live systems fail.

What advice do you have for any women who is looking to work in tech?

I think there are some misconceptions about what working in tech is like. Lots of people don’t think that the tech industry is for them, but many are unfamiliar with it and are simply intimidated. Instead, I wish people would try it out before deciding if that’s what they want to pursue. There are so many online courses that can introduce you to the subject, some that include a hands-on approach to give you a strong understanding of the technology.

And how do you respond to people that perceive the tech industry as boring?

Software development isn’t boring – it’s part of every aspect of our lives today, from mobile phones to hospital equipment. Some applications are designed with entertainment in mind, and some are developed to fight crime. The field of software development holds an ocean of possibilities, and is in no way less suitable for women. We all use apps every day, both men and women, so my advice for any women interested in tech would be to pursue it.

What is the greatest transformation in technology you’ve witnessed in your career?

The greatest transformation in technology in my career is the design of distributed systems to deal with mass production of data by the general public. Specifically, backend architecture that supports reliable storage of data and low latency of data access. The massive growth of data also spurred the development of algorithms that try to draw intelligent conclusions from all this data, for various purposes – and in our case, for targeted advertising.

]]>Your GDPR Hubhttps://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/05/your-gdpr-hub/
Thu, 03 May 2018 17:35:23 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18253Sociomantic Certified Again by EDAAhttps://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/04/sociomantic-certified-again-by-edaa/
Mon, 30 Apr 2018 13:33:05 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18184Continue reading →]]>Sociomantic Labs has been, once again, given the trust seal by the EDAA, its highest certification.The European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance (EDAA) represents advertisers, the advertising agency sector, the direct marketing sector, the advertising network sector and the media sector. Its principal purpose is to licence the ‘OBA Icon’ to companies involved in Online Behavioural Advertising across Europe, certifying with a trust seal those that complete the independent certification process with an EDAA-approved Independent Certification Provider – in this case, ePrivacy.

The OBA certification report by ePrivacy is based on a number of manual and automated inspections of the detailed requirements for the implementation of IAB Europe OBA Framework. The automated inspections are conducted using the system “Privacy Inspection Technology (PIT)”, which has been developed by ePrivacy itself. Our company complies with all principles of the OBA Framework, which is why ePrivacy granted us the EDAA Trust Seal as of first March 2018. The seal has a duration of 12 months, until 28th February 2019.Once again, Sociomantic has been certified with the coveted seal, as another symbol of our fight for transparency, clarity, and the mission to respect consumer’s data.

]]>GDPR: How We’ve Gotten Readyhttps://www.sociomantic.com/blog/2018/04/gdpr-how-we-got-ready/
Fri, 27 Apr 2018 08:53:14 +0000https://www.sociomantic.com/?p=18192Continue reading →]]>GDPR is only a few weeks away. While it may have originally been perceived as a burdensome revolution, the regulations are now understood to be an important step towards ethical online advertising, with respectful use of data as its first priority.

Since Sociomantic’s early days, we have had data privacy at the core of our business. We use data carefully and respectfully while helping our clients make their online advertising more relevant and personalized. Many of our existing data protection procedures were already strongly aligned with the GDPR guidelines. With May 25th on the horizon, we have doubled our efforts, preparing behind the scenes in order to meet the requirements applicable for the advertisers, publishers and partners we work with all around the globe, so that they, too, are compliant by proxy wherever Sociomantic’s partnership is concerned.

For one, we’ve been running Sociomantic’s Privacy Program, which pursues implementation of policies and procedures, to comply with data protection by design and default. The key principles that have guided the company-wide program are listed in Sociomantic’s Approach to Data Privacy. As we are on the verge of this colossal industry change, we are ready to share how we’ve readied ourselves for the benefit of our clients and partners.

Privacy by Design

Having data privacy at heart of our business, we’ve emplaced several technical and organizational measures to make sure we keep the personal data we are processing as safe as possible. Measures taken include:

All data processed and stored by Sociomantic is pseudonymized, which means it can no longer be attributed to a specific data subject or person without the use of additional information.

Data is SSL encrypted during transmission, which means information is protected from being hacked and recognized during this transmission. All systems processing clients’ data for advertising purposes are automated which minimizes vulnerability for “human errors”.

Our Data Protection Officer has been working alongside our legal department since 2016, training our team on important regulations and data processing, as well as conducting continuous audits to ensure compliance, and monitoring performance on data protection efforts.

We know our databases by heart, thus we are able to act on any user requests, respecting the user’s individual rights under GDPR.

We’ve set up procedure to respond to any consumer complaint and/or request within seven days.

We’ve checked and modified our data infrastructure, including arranging for new processes with directly responsible people.

We made sure we work only with trusted supply partners we selected, making sure their practices run parallel to the same rigorous standards that we set for ourselves.

We’ve reviewed and revised contracts to ensure that our suppliers cover the required terms. Where necessary, we also conducted a privacy impact assessment on our suppliers.

We made sure we work only with trusted server providers. Our European server provider is ISO 27001 certified, declaring themselves to have implemented a proper information security management system with highest security standards.

We equipped our client services team with a comprehensive overview of privacy topics so that they can better understand the challenges faced by our clients, and how to best support them.

Setting High Standards and Continuously Challenging Ourselves

To continuously manage our GDPR compliance we’ve put in place several procedures that will make sure we maintain the course.

Continuous research while consciously monitoring our data stets to ensure all data are processed and retained only for the necessitated period.

Carrying out internal assessments to identify what risks our data processing poses to an individual, and to ensure that our data processing is a low-risk environment, for the benefit of our clients and their customers.

We hope we have provided assurances that Sociomantic has concentrated time and resources to help make sure all our clients, publishers and partners around the globe are compliant where Sociomantic’s services are concerned, in the lead up to the GDPR’s official start date. We will continue improving our measures and procedures and we will keep you posted about important updates regarding GDPR.